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“No,” I say.
Lo nods and bites a chunk of his bread.
“You have a boyfriend?” our dad questions.
Willow sinks in her chair. “Yeah…”
“He’s in high school,” Lo says after he swallows.
“He’s younger?”
Lo sips his Fizz. “Nope.”
“He kind of flunked out of his last school,” Willow explains, “and he was supposed to graduate in May, but they’re holding him back until December since he’s missed more school than he’s attended.”
Jonathan drums the table with two fingers. You know that saying: if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say it at all? Yeah, Hales don’t do that. “He sounds like a loser.”
Lo pipes in, “I flunked out. Am I a loser, Dad?”
“Of college,” he corrects his son. “And you’re a Hale, which means that I love you no matter what shitty thing you do or how apathetic you are.”
Willow picks up her water, her hand quaking. Ice cubes clank against the glass.
“While we’re on the topic,” our dad poorly segues, eyeing her drink.
“We weren’t on any fucking topic,” I snap. I should regret it. I’m obviously giving him a hard time, and he’s being nice. But being nice and Jonathan Hale are two categories that almost never share space in a fucking Venn diagram.
I have to get used to this.
“It’s relevant.” His focus lands on Willow again. “You’re nineteen, and I know what nineteen-year-olds do since I raised one.”
Willow pushes her glasses up. “I’m not anything like Lo was at nineteen.”
“Cheers to that.” Lo raises his glass and downs his Fizz.
Jonathan rests an elbow on the table. “And how do you know what Loren was like?”
It takes her a minute to answer. “Um…I went to Dalton Academy for my senior year, and a lot of the kids had older siblings that went to school with him. They had stories…and Lo has told me some too.”
Lo swishes the ice in his glass. “Only the best ones.” He exchanges a smile with Willow.
I don’t have constant heart-to-hearts with my little brother, but he’s described his childhood to me. He was bullied. He was fucking spiteful. He sought revenge more than once. He was willing do anything to protect Lily.
As long as he could keep drinking.
Jonathan motions to Willow with his knife. “I assume you go to parties?”
“Not really. It’s just not my…cup of tea.”
Our father butters a piece of bread. “This family has a history of alcohol dependency,” he begins like this is a talk he’s given all of us.
It isn’t even fucking close.
My face begins to fall. For as long as I’ve known him, he’s always struggled to identify with being an alcoholic. Admitting that he has a fucking problem. Talking about it. Out loud.
He continues, “You should avoid alcohol if you can. It’ll be easier in the long run. Take it from someone who didn’t go that route and from someone who did.” His knife aims at me. “Ryke has the right idea.”
I’m not sure what to do with the fucking compliment. Beneath everything, I feel proud of my dad. It’s so fucking overwhelming. I just stare at my water glass while the waiter refills it.
“How long have you been sober?” Willow asks me when the waiter leaves. This might be one of the first personal questions she’s ever broached to my face. She’s asked me about Lo plenty of times though.
Lo crunches on an ice cube, but he won’t make eye contact with me. If it hadn’t been for Paris, where he handed me alcohol, I would’ve been sober for almost twelve years now.
It’s not his fucking fault, not entirely. I knew what I was getting into that night. So I just say, “A long fucking time.”
“It wasn’t as hard for you since you quit early on?” she wonders.
“I didn’t have the same kind of draw or temptation throughout my twenties like Lo, but quitting initially was fucking tough.” I used alcohol as a way to cope with my feelings, and I ended it all by seventeen. Being consumed by track and rock climbing helped distract me from cravings.
“So do you understand?” Jonathan asks Willow.
She nods. “Yeah, Lo actually mentioned staying away from alcohol. He said there’s no such thing as just one beer for people like us.”
My brows scrunch at Lo like you did?
He shrugs, more sheepishly than usual.
I can’t help but fucking smile. I’m proud of you too.
He rolls his eyes at me.
Willow’s phone buzzes again. She readjusts her purse on the chair but doesn’t reach for the phone. “I don’t really like the taste of alcohol, so I’ve never planned to be a big drinker anyway.” Lily is kind of like that. “So…you know I’m not in high school or college, so you don’t have to worry about me stumbling on a party or being peer pressured either.”
“About college—” Jonathan is cut off by Willow’s vibrating phone again.
“Sorry,” she apologizes, bringing the purse to her lap.
“I really want you to consider applying for one of the Ivy Leagues. I can find someone notable to write you a recommendation, and you’ll be in, no matter your test scores. Graduating from Princeton or even University of Pennsylvania will give you a leg up in whatever you want to do.”
“I don’t have the money,” she mutters, distracted as she digs around for her phone.
“Dad,” Lo chimes in, “she doesn’t want a fucking handout. Okay? You need to let it go. It’s her choice—”
“I can stand by all of your choices, as long as they’re not obnoxious or stupid. This falls somewhere in between. Why not take advantage of all your resources? Unless you plan to do something that wouldn’t benefit from college?”
She shakes her head, finally obtaining her phone. “I’m…not really sure what I want to do yet.”
Jonathan outstretches his arms. “What better way to find out than college?”
Willow pales. “I don’t want to take anything. From any of you.” Her eyes ping to Lo and then me. Before our dad speaks, she adds, “I’m just some girl from Maine who showed up on your doorstep, and I don’t want to be the person who sticks around to leech off of her long lost brothers and father. It can’t be like that.”
I’m the first to fucking say, “You’re not just some girl. You’re our fucking sister.”
It must hit her hard be
cause her eyes glass behind her lenses.
“I’m not going to lie,” our dad cuts in. “I don’t understand ethical decisions.” Then he makes a fucking point to stare straight at me. “Like my son legally changing his first name out of some absurd principle.”
My jaw locks. I chose that over money, and he still can’t comprehend why. Maybe he never will, but I feel better by it—and that’s all that fucking matters to me.
“Ryke.” Willow cups her cellphone, staring wide-eyed at the screen. “Daisy keeps texting me. Do you have your phone on you?”
“Fuck.” I take out my phone and turn it back on. Five missed calls. More texts that say call me. I’m really sorry for bothering you.
Fuck. I immediately stand up and dial Daisy’s number.
No one fights me on it. I walk towards the full-length window and a nearby empty table, the phone to my ear. Ringing.
Just fucking ringing.
Pick up, Dais.
A tennis instructor wheels a cart full of balls towards the center court. Kids, no older than eight or nine, skip ahead with little rackets and beaming smiles. Clouds roll over the sun, casting shadows on the court, and the phone keeps on fucking ringing.
It clicks to voicemail, but I call her again.
On the second ring, she finally answers, “Ryke?” She’s almost out of breath.
“Yeah, it’s me.”
There’s a long fucking pause.
“Daisy,” I force, worried out of my fucking mind.
“Can you meet me at Dr. Yoshida’s?” There’s a tremor in her voice.
The wind knocks out of me, and I rest a hand on the window. “Is something fucking wrong?” I ask.
Her cyst ruptured.
She’s bleeding.
She has to go into surgery.
In her silence, the worst rams into me.
Over and fucking over, and then—
“I might be pregnant,” she says, vacuuming my terrible thoughts.
I stand completely still.
“I was going to wait until you came home, but not knowing has been messing with me all day. I just…if it’s a false test again—I don’t know. I just need to rip this off like a Band-Aid, I think. I wasn’t going to take you from your lunch but—”
